GST collections in November at Rs 1.68 lakh crore, up 15% YoY

The government reported on December 1 that its Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections increased by 15 percent annually in November, reaching Rs 1.68 lakh crore, marking the ninth consecutive month of growth.

The November GST collection of Rs 1.68 lakh crore is a 2% decrease compared to the Rs 1.72 lakh crore collected in October.

This represents the ninth consecutive month in which the monthly GST collection has surpassed Rs 1.5 crore.

Recent GST data places the average monthly collection at Rs 1.67 lakh crore in 2023-24. Over time, monthly GST collections have increased. After being severely impacted by the pandemic in 2020-221, monthly collections skyrocketed from an average of less than Rs 1 lakh crore in 2017-18, its inaugural year, to Rs 1.51 lakh crore in 2022-23.

State GST was Rs 38,226 crore, Integrated GST was Rs 87,009 crore, and compensation cess was Rs 12,274 crore in November. Central GST was Rs 30,420 crore.

In addition, the government transferred Rs 37,878 crore from Integrated GST to the Central GST and Rs 31,557 crore to the State GST. Consequently, the aggregate revenue for the month subsequent to the settlement amounted to Rs 69,783 crore for the State GST and Rs 68,297 crore for the Centre.

"During the month, the revenues from domestic transactions (including import of services) are 20 percent higher than the revenues from these sources during the same month last year," according to a statement from the finance ministry.

Although November saw a slight decrease in total GST collections compared to October, the year-on-year growth of slightly more than 15 percent is the highest recorded thus far in the fiscal year 2023-24. Indeed, November witnessed the greatest year-on-year growth in GST collections in the past eleven months.

In accordance with the Budget for 2023-24, the Centre anticipates a 12 percent increase in GST collections for the current fiscal year. The aggregate GST collected thus far in the first eight months of the year amounts to Rs 13.32 lakh crore, representing an increase of 11.9 percent compared to the corresponding period in the previous year.

The PMI data is released one day after the statistics ministry reported that the manufacturing sector of the Indian economy expanded by 13.9 percent year-on-year during the July-September period, which was faster-than-expected at 7.6 percent.

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Pratik Jain, Partner at Price Waterhouse & Co LLP, predicts that audits and investigations will likely contribute to the upward trend in GST collections throughout the remainder of 2023–2024.

"It's interesting to see that robust growth in GST (compared to last year) is seen in most of the manufacturing states, indicative of uplift in demand and consumption," Jain commented.Services Tax mop-up expenses have surpassed Rs 1.5 lakh crore.